Manage data sources in Grafana Cloud

A data source is how Grafana connects to your data so you can query and visualize it. Every data source is powered by a plugin: Grafana ships with the plugins for its core data sources, and you can install more from the plugin catalog. A plugin only adds support for a data source type. You still need to configure the data source itself with your connection details before you can query it. In Grafana Cloud, configured data sources fall into two categories: data sources that come ready to use with every Grafana Cloud stack, and data sources that you add and configure yourself. This page explains how each category works, what’s different about data sources in Grafana Cloud compared to self-managed Grafana, and where to find detailed instructions.

If you’re not sure how data sources relate to plugins and integrations, refer to Data sources, plugins, and integrations.

Use the data sources included with your stack

Your Grafana Cloud stack includes a set of default data source instances that Grafana Cloud creates and configures for the hosted services that store your metrics, logs, traces, and profiles. Their names begin with grafanacloud-, for example grafanacloud-<STACK_NAME>-prom for metrics or grafanacloud-<STACK_NAME>-logs for logs. You can query these without additional setup.

This doesn’t apply to the Grafana core data sources, which cover a wide variety of systems, such as SQL databases, Elasticsearch, and cloud provider services. For those, only the plugin is included with your stack. You still need to add and configure the data source yourself before you can query it. Refer to Add external data sources.

You can’t delete these data sources or modify their connection configuration in the UI. However, you can use data source permissions to control which users can query data with them. For more information, refer to Administer hosted Grafana in your Grafana Cloud Stack.

To send data to the services behind these data sources, refer to Instrument and send data to Grafana Cloud.

To find the connection details for a stack data source, such as its instance ID and URL, refer to Find instance endpoints. To generate a token for querying it from outside your stack, refer to Grafana Cloud Access Policies.

Add external data sources

You can connect Grafana Cloud to data that lives outside your stack, such as a database, a cloud provider service, or a self-managed observability backend.

The workflow is short: open Connections in your Grafana instance, search for the data source, install its plugin if it isn’t already installed, enter the connection details, and click Save & test. You need a user with the Admin role to add data sources.

For the full procedure, refer to Get started with an existing data source.

Review Cloud-specific constraints

Grafana Cloud runs your Grafana instance for you, so some things work differently than in self-managed Grafana:

Plugins come from the catalog. You can only add data source plugins that are published in the Grafana plugins catalog. Private, custom-built, or unsigned plugins can’t be installed on Grafana Cloud. For more information, refer to Find and use Grafana plugins.
External connections use IPv4. Grafana Cloud doesn’t currently support connecting to external data sources using IPv6. Use IPv4 addresses or hostnames that resolve to them.
Your data source may need an allowlist entry. If your data source blocks network traffic by default, add the hosted Grafana source IP addresses to its allowlist. Refer to List of Grafana Cloud IP addresses to add to your allowlist.
Private networks need PDC. Grafana Cloud connects to your data source over the public network by default, so addresses like localhost or private network IP addresses can’t be resolved. To reach data sources on private networks, use Private data source connect (PDC).
Data sources have a per-organization limit. Grafana limits the number of data sources per organization through the org_data_source quota. To find your current limit or request an increase, contact Grafana Support.

Control access to data sources

Grafana Cloud gives you several layers of access control, depending on what you want to restrict:

Adding and managing data sources requires the Admin role.
Data source permissions control which users, teams, and roles can query, edit, or administer an individual data source. Refer to Data source management.
Role-based access control (RBAC) provides fine-grained control over data source actions through fixed and custom roles. Refer to Roles and permissions.
Team LBAC restricts which log lines, metrics, or traces a team can query from Loki, Prometheus, and Tempo data sources based on label selectors. Refer to Team LBAC.
Label-based access control (LBAC) with access policies limits which metrics and logs data a token can read based on label selectors. Refer to Use label-based access control (LBAC) with access policies.
Cloud access policies authorize programmatic access to your stack’s hosted services and the Grafana Cloud API, for example when another stack or an external tool queries your data. Refer to Grafana Cloud Access Policies.

Provision data sources programmatically

In self-managed Grafana, you can provision data sources with YAML configuration files. Provisioning with configuration files isn’t available in Grafana Cloud.

Instead, use one of the following options:

Terraform manages data sources and other Grafana Cloud resources as code. Refer to Infrastructure as code.
The Grafana HTTP API creates, updates, and deletes data sources programmatically. Refer to the Data source API.
Grafana Operator manages data sources and other Grafana resources from Kubernetes, including resources in Grafana Cloud stacks. Refer to Manage folders, data sources, and dashboards using the Grafana Operator.

Query data across stacks

If your organization uses more than one stack, you can create data sources that query metrics, logs, and traces across multiple stacks at once. This feature is in public preview. Refer to Query data across multiple stacks.